Champagne breakfast: a question of etiquette

Author: Max Allen
Photography: Will Horner, styling by Aimee Jones

It's eight o'clock on Christmas morning and we're already onto
our second bottle of Champagne. It's a family
ritual. Opening presents, scoffing panettone, guzzling the bubbly.
Happens every year. And because it's Christmas, and because it's a
family ritual, none of us thinks twice about the fact we're
drinking at dawn.

Funny, isn't it? If I popped the cork on a bottle of fizz at
7:30am at any other time of the year, my wife would accuse me of
being a hopeless alcoholic. Again. And she'd probably be right. But
somehow our family - and many others I know - have decided that
boozing at breakfast is perfectly okay on Christmas
Day. (Indeed, my wife is one of the staunchest defenders
of the ritual.) It's far from the only example of how complex and
often contradictory the rules can be about when and where it's fine
to drink.

Sip pinot from fine crystal at the dinner table and everyone
thinks you're sophisticated. Sip pinot from plastic cups on a park
bench (come on, we've all done it) and everyone thinks you're a
plonko. Same wine, same person; different setting, different
assumptions.

Pass around the hip flask of single-malt at a
funeral on a cold winter's day and you're a legend. Try the same at
the office next Monday and you'll be fired. Drinking vodka before
midday is bad for you; mix it with tomato juice and Tabasco and
suddenly it's bloody good for you.

In many ways the guidelines about when to start drinking are
culturally determined. There's a tradition in this country, for
instance, of pubs opening early for thirsty hard-working blokes.
Think of the classic Carlton Ale ad featuring a whiskery bushman
nursing a glass at the bar with the tag line: "I allus has wan at
eleven". It's an enduring image - although most Australians now, I
suspect, consider 5pm, not 11am, the acceptable boundary between
the working and the drinking day.

The guidelines are flexible, though. Most Australians on
holiday would bring that line forward: how often in some
exotic location have you heard, at the stroke of noon, someone
jauntily announce: "Right, the sun's over the yardarm - who's for a
G&T?" And how many times has that someone been you? Acceptable
start times for drinking - and tipples of choice - vary from
country to country.

In roadside bistros in northern France, for
example, truckies commonly wash down breakfast galettes - egg,
cheese and ham-stuffed buckwheat crêpes - with glasses of
moderately alcoholic local golden cider. And it's
not uncommon for their Italian counterparts to add a shot of grappa
to their morning coffee order.

Hungover Danes are partial to a breakfast glass of Gammel Dansk,
a Jägermeister-like bitter liqueur, which, according to the label,
is "Enjoyable in the morning... hunting or fishing". In Barcelona,
the old Sunday pre-lunch habit of drinking a glass of local
vermouth is enjoying a renaissance - and not just on a Sunday. And
the Italian mid-afternoon habit of having an Aperol or
Campari Spritz has become enormously fashionable around
the world in the past few years.

The English do mid-morning and mid-afternoon drinks particularly
well. Elevenses (a marvellous institution) simply
must, if you're observing the ritual properly, include a glass of
dry sherry or Madeira - especially if you're serving seed cake (which you should). And British wine
expert Michael Broadbent, renowned for tasting
more great old bottles than anyone, has frequently extolled the
virtues of a low-alcohol, sweet Italian moscato to keep one company
during the slow hours between lunch and dinner.

Then there's the question of late-night drinking. Again, it's
all about context. If, after an abstemious night in, you decide at
midnight to crack open a tinnie of pale ale, the accusations of
alcoholism would come thick and fast - even though you're well
within what health professionals would consider safe drinking
limits. But if you've just finished a wine-soaked
dégustation and partake in a cleansing ale it's
socially acceptable - even though you exceeded the safe drinking
limits hours ago.

You could, of course, just follow the example set by chef
Fergus Henderson of London's St John, a great believer in both the
preventative and curative effects of the notoriously bitter Italian
digestivo, Fernet Branca, who recommends a small glass last thing
at night and first thing in the morning.